Best Settings for making a Secure, Reliable Disk Image?

Hi guys!

Can anybody direct me to the best settings that can be used to make a secure Disk image using the MacOS X disc utility?

I wish to make my computer family friendly, yet keep my proffessional and private files secure/private and innaccesible to children and unautorized individuals. I have heard that files saved inside encrypted images (password protected) are also not indexed in the finder wich is perfect for the privacy I seek (this is true right?).

I know how to access the tools, but the right settings for making a trustworthy image remain elusive. Already tried with some of the formats and information placed inside...started becoming glitchy and unreliable, even after removing the files and making them unencrypted again.I'm abaout to try with the HFS+ format.

I cannot lose the files I wish to protect. But I need to secure them and if anything, be capable of backing up the image by copying it into a HFS+ formated external hard drive every once in a while. Can this be done?

Is there a risk of data loss in the encryption process? One of my external drives (FAT 32) even started to make unrelated neighboring folders "disappear" after making an image inside ( I though I could make an image anywhere and save stuff securely at that point...but nearly losing the entire cashe of info made me backtrack and simply avoid the process until i'm sure of what I'm setting up---so many compatibility problems!)

• Don't know what settings to use.

• Some say there is a small chance of a disk image being damaged or corrupted (for no reason whatsoever)...but having trouble right off the bat, with a brand new image worries me. WHAT ARE THE RISKS? Is the system unrefined and unrealiable?

I plan to make the Image a sparse file,using the HMS+ format, 400GB....regular encryption. I plan to copy all my sensitive stuff inside and delete unprotected copies. Risky? Are images unreliable in general? or where my glitches abnormalities?---Can the images hold collections of files or do they become more unrealiable the bigger they get (what I fear). I don't wan't to have to make dozens of images to protect my files.

Can a external drive be formated to HMS+ and accept a drag and dropped copy of a 400GB image? FAT32 will just not accept it. Would there be risk of the image being damaged in the transfer? NOTE that copying the data into an external drive would be to have a secure backup of the data. If I can't trust the backup to be carbon copy intact...it isn't a backup.

Securing files is really proving to be bothersome, despite having "refined" tools at my disposal.

Thanks for your help!